Rebekah Isaacs is the series artist on Angel & Faith, the spinoff from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer series published by Dark Horse Comics. Now entering its second year, the book has seen the first appearance of Faith's father, a return for some of Angel's supporting cast, and a visit from a certain redheaded witch. All the while, Angel is toiling away to find a way to bring Giles back from a natural death...one that he caused. Rebekah Isaacs was kind enough to sit down with me during the New York Comic Con to chat about the book.

James Ferguson: You have over a dozen issues of Angel & Faith under your belt now and have managed to fit in so many awesome tidbits along the way. Have you had a favorite moment from your first year on the book?

Rebekah Isaacs: Oh, wow. That's a good question. I love the Giles flashbacks. Those are always on my top moments. My favorite one is probably the scene with the Lorphage demon in the cemetery. That was really awesome. I loved the way that tied into Angel's scene right before, where he visited the cemetery and we had that great flashback with Giles in the same place. Yeah, that was one of my favorite moments.

JF: There's a legion of Whedon fans out there that are all zeroed in on Season 9. Was stepping into this comic intimidating at all?

RI: Yeah, definitely. Joss' fans are very passionate and they know what they like. I love them for this. They're not afraid to vocalize their opinions. I think it's great. It keeps us really honest. That means that there's still something in this for them to really latch on to and care about. It's kind of rare in comics in general to find an audience like that, that is still so gung-ho and still really cares about what happens and isn't just jaded.

JF: You just wrapped up a pretty big arc on Angel & Faith. Family Reunion saw some of the extended cast of characters come into play including Gunn, Connor, and Willow. Is there a character in the Buffyverse that you haven't drawn yet that you'd like to get your hands on?

RI: Yes! I don't know how this would ever be manageable, although we are on the topic of resurrecting people in this season, but I would love to draw a Jonathan issue, even if it was just a one-shot. I love him so much. I love the comedy in his episodes. If they could do that for me, I would be a very happy camper. I would really love to do Illyria / Fred and Cordelia and get my Angel Investigations team rounded out.

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JF: Your design for Willow made perfect sense to me. She looks like she's grown up. How did you come up with her new look?

RI: Well, the hair was to [Buffy the Vampire Slayer artist] Georges Jeanty's credit. He designed her haircut. The clothes, [artist] Chris Samnee and I worked together a little bit on that because he had to draw her coming in at the end of issue 10 before I did, so I needed to copy his design for her. Basically my input was just "Give her a jacket." I did have a very specific idea for what kind of clothes that she would wear. Georges has established a bit of a look for her as well. More earthy but also elegant. I think that's a big difference from her look in previous incarnations. She wore some kind of frumpy stuff before, a little Ren Faire. She's just more streamlined and mature.

JF: Family Reunion had the team visiting Quor'Toth. First off, I think I'm pronouncing that right? "Kwar-Toth."

RI: You know, your guess is as good as anyone’s.

JF: There were a ton of bizarre creatures that filled this realm. How did you come up with the designs for them? Did [Angel & Faith writer] Christos Gage give you any suggestions? Or did you have free reign?

RI: It depends on the creatures. The little flying guys, those were strictly my creation. The actual Quor'Toth, the old one. Christos gave me a lot of direction for that. He has really crazy messed up ideas for demons so he came up with the exposed brain and the black blood dripping out of his mouths. No eyes. He really wanted it to not have eyes. I drew him with eyes at first and he immediately said "Get rid of the eyes." He was right. It made it look so much creepier.

JF: Your cover for issue #14 was an homage to The Wizard of Oz. Please tell me there are more of these coming up because this one was so cool.

RI: Probably not another Wizard of Oz homage. We might have gotten into a little trouble with that one actually. Luckily it did see the light of day. We love doing homages. I really pressed for the back cover of Ziggy Stardust with Pearl and Nash in the telephone booth, but it's covered in blood. We just did a really great homage to an Archie cover which is probably my favorite cover that I've done. I think everyone's really going to love it. The theme of it fits so well with the inner personal relationship things now that Spike is coming in. It was like it was made for us to do an homage of.

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JF: Can you give a little tease as to what's to come for Angel & Faith? Are we building up to a big season finale?

RI: Yes! There is a really, really huge game changer at the end of the season. Of course, we wouldn't end it without one. I'm not sure how exactly it's going to build up or at what point things are going to start really reaching ahead but yeah...

JF: Very vague.

RI: It is very vague. I really have to be very vague.

JF: Can you tease anything going into the next arc?

RI: Hmmm...We know Spike's in it. That's already been teased. We definitely have some really excellent Giles flashbacks coming up. We learn about his time as Ripper so that's really cool. A lot of the content from the Giles flashbacks came from Joss' plans for a Ripper mini-series. Tons of it came from Joss' notes for that.

HorrorTalk would like to thank Rebekah Isaacs for taking the time to chat with us. You can check out more of her work at her website.

James has a 2nd grade reading level and, as a result, only reads books with pictures. Horror is his 5th favorite genre right after romantic comedy and just before silent films. No one knows why he's here, but he won't leave.